34" What thank have ye?" xvii. 9, "Doth he thank that servant" (χάριν ἔχει).

R. V. "This is acceptable," something which finds favour with God, cf. Lk. i. 30, ii. 52; Acts ii. 47, vii. 46, etc. This is a very common meaning in the O.T. and is probably intended here.

Sid ovveidnσiv 0ɛoû. A.V. and R.V. “conscience towards God," but when σvveidnois is followed by an objective genitive it means rather consciousness of, e.g. conscious sense of sins Heb. x. 2, a conscious sense of the idol's existence 1 Cor. viii. 7 T.R. (v.1. ovvn@eía). So here it means prompted by a conscious sense of God's presence and will, cf. Eph. vi. 7; Col. iii. 23 ŵs тŵ 0eŵ kai ойк ȧvОрúжоis. Such consciousness of the watchful presence of a just God, who demands submission to authority from them, can enable servants to bear man's injustice with patience as Christ did.

20. Kλéos occurs nowhere else in the N.T. and only once in the LXX., Job xxviii. 22, where it means "fame." Here it means that there is no credit, nothing which men count heroic in patient submission to punishment which is deserved. κολαφιζόμενοι from Kóλapos a fist, so "to buffet." Cf. Mt. xxvi. 67; Mk xiv. 65; 1 Cor. iv. 11; 2 Cor. xii. 7 but it is not found in the LXX. nor in classical Greek.

21. ELS TOÛTO ÈKλýoŋτe. The call to follow Christ is not only to imitate Him in well-doing but also to share His sufferings, cf. v. 10; Mt. xvi. 24; 1 Thess. iii. 3; 2 Tim. ii. 11; Heb. ii. 10.

If the Captain of salvation was made perfect through suffering the same process is employed by God in bringing His other sons to glory.

ὑπολιμπάνων. λιμπάνειν is a late form for λείπειν, leaving be

hind.

ὑπογραμμός (in classical Greek ὑπογραφή), means a drawing to be traced over, or an outline to be filled in and coloured, cf. VπOTÚπWσIS, a rough model, 1 Tim. i. 16; 2 Tim. i. 13. Neither ὑπολιμπάνειν nor ὑπογραμμός occur again.

éπakoλovdeîv, to follow close upon, like climbers treading in the steps of an Alpine guide. Cf. 1 Tim. v. 10, 24; Mk xvi. 20.

'xveov, cf. Rom. iv. 12; 2 Cor. xii. 18.

22. ὃς ἁμαρτίαν οὐκ ἐποίησεν οὐδὲ εὑρέθη δόλος ἐν τῷ στόματι auToû. In the LXX. of Is. liii. 9, the words are öтi ȧvoμíav oŮK ÉπOÍNσEV οὐδὲ δόλον ἐν τῷ στόματι αὐτοῦ. The description in Is. liii. of the ideal servant of Jehovah, suffering as the representative of the people, is quoted by St Peter in these verses (22-24) as being fulfilled in Christ.

23. οὐκ ἀντελοιδόρει. The imperfects ἀντελοιδόρει, ἠπείλει, παρεdidov are sometimes explained as denoting the habitual attitude of the life of Christ as opposed to the one definite act of the crucifixion ȧvýveуkev. But more probably the imperfects describe St Peter's own recollections of our Lord's sufferings of which he claims to have been a witness v. 1, "When I saw Him being reviled and threatened, He was all the while using no revilings or threats but was committing His cause to God.” The aorists ἐποίησεν, εὑρέθη, ἀνήνεγκεν on the other hand describe His life and death as a whole.

τῷ κρίνοντι δικαίως. The Vulgate reads "judicanti injuste," submitted to him that was judging unjustly, i.e. Pilate. But no Greek text reads adiκws, and the real meaning is that Christ could patiently submit to man's injustice because He committed His cause to the just judgment of God, cf. 2 Thess. i. 4.

24. ávýveykev is the word used in Is. liii. 12, “He bare the sins of many," and the numerous reminiscences of that chapter in this section make it almost certain that St Peter is borrowing the word from it, coupling with it the word ¿úλov probably from Deut. xxi. 23. The same phrase from Isaiah is also borrowed in Heb. ix. 28, ò XρLOTÒS ἅπαξ προσενεχθεὶς εἰς τὸ πολλῶν ἀνενεγκεῖν ἁμαρτίας. In that passage ȧvapépeiv seems certainly to retain something of its ordinary sacrificial meaning of "offer up" (cf. 1 Pet. ii. 5; Jas ii. 21 èπì тò Ovσiaστýρlov, Heb. vii. 27, xiii. 15). (In the Gospels åvapépeiv merely means to "take up" (Mt. xvii. 1; Mk ix. 2; Lk. xxiv. 51).) So Chrysostom explains the words in Heb. ix. 28 as meaning that, just as when we offer up an offering we present our sins for pardon that God may take them away, so Christ offered up our sins to the Father not for judgment but for removal. Westcott considers that the sacrificial idea is present in the phrase, but explains that Christ carried to the cross the burden of sins (not, primarily or separately from the sins, the punishment of sins) and there did away with sin and sins. So here St Peter may regard our sins laid upon Christ as being included in the sacrificial victim, the Body of Christ "offered up" upon the Altar of the Cross.

Deissmann (Bible Studies, p. 88), while admitting that the word ȧvapépei was perhaps suggested to St Peter by the reminiscences of Is. liii. which pervade this section, argues that we have no right to assume that St Peter must have used it in the same sense as the LXX. translators of Is. liii. 12, who may have meant "suffered the punishment of" as representing the Hebrew N. In that case, says Deissmann, St Peter would have added ènì т ¿úλw, whereas éπl with the accusative would mean "carry up to."

(In answer to this it may be argued that in Is. liii. 11 ávoloε Tàs ȧuaprías is the LXX. translation of an entirely different verb D (used also in the second clause of Is. liii. 4, where it is translated ỏduvâtaɩ), and this word does mean to “load oneself with a burden," and that burden might be described as "carried up to the Cross.")

Deissmann disputes the sacrificial meaning of ȧvapépew in this passage on the ground that the sins could hardly be described as offered up. He would explain the words as meaning that, when Christ "bears up to" the cross the sins of men, then men have them no more; the "bearing up" is a "taking away," without any special idea of substitution or sacrifice. He also quotes a contract, Pap. Flind. Petr. 1. xvi. 2, περὶ δὲ ὧν ἀντιλέγω ἀναφερομεν [......] ὀφειλημάτων κριθήσομαι ἐπ ̓ ̓Ασκληπιάδου. The editor supplies the missing portion...ων εἰς què and the sense may be that certain debts of another person have been imposed upon the writer (cf. Aesch. 3. 215; Isoc. 5. 32). If such a forensic meaning was intended by St Peter, the meaning would be that the sins of men are laid upon the Cross, as in a court of law a debt in money is removed from one and laid upon another. We might compare the forensic metaphor in Col. ii. 14 where the xeɩpbYpapov drawn up against mankind is taken away by being nailed to the Cross.

ἐν τῷ σώματι αὐτοῦ. The body of Christ is the organism through which His life is fulfilled. His earthly body was the instrument of His perfect obedience and self-sacrifice, "A body hast thou prepared Me," Heb. x. 5. "By the offering of that body (alike in the perfect service of His life and the voluntary endurance of death) we have been sanctified," Heb. x. 10. St Paul in Rom. vii. 4 says, "Ye were made dead to the law through the body of Christ." So here it is the sin-bearing victim. But elsewhere in St Paul the body of Christ means the organism by which His life and work are still carried on, viz. the Church in which Jews and Gentiles are made one. Of that body He is still the Head and the source of its life and growth. Into it Christians are incorporated by Baptism, and are sustained by partaking of His life. Each has to contribute in building it up. On its behalf St Paul rejoices in sharing the sufferings of Christ.

In view of St Peter's apparent use of Romans and Ephesians in so many passages, it is certainly surprising that he shews no trace of this striking Pauline conception of the body of Christ.

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gúλov is used for a gallows tree in Deut. xxi. 23, “ Cursed is every one that hangeth upon a tree," quoted in Gal. iii. 13. But the only other passages where it is used for the Cross are in St Peter's speeches, Acts v. 30 and x. 39, and by St Paul, Acts xiii. 29. In

Rev. xxii. 2 etc. it is used for "the tree of life" and in Lk. xxiii. 31 of "the green tree." In Acts xvi. 24 it means "the stocks," and in the plural Mt. xxvi. 47, "staves."

ταῖς ἁμαρτίαις ἀπογενόμενοι, breaking of all connexion with sins, being dead to them. The verb occurs nowhere else in the LXX. or Ν.Τ. For the dative after compounds of ἀπό, cf. ἀποθνήσκειν τῷ νόμῳ, Gal. ii. 19, Tŷ àμapríą, Rom. vi. 2.

The purpose of Christ's sacrifice, as stated here and generally in the N.T., is not to save man from the punishment of sin so much as from its power, to put an end to the regime of sin. The same idea is suggested in iv. 1, ὁ παθὼν σαρκὶ πέπαυται ἁμαρτίαις, Christians are to welcome sufferings as the process by which the ideal "death unto sin,” symbolized by their baptism into Christ's death, is made real in the persons of His members. The same thought of being dead to sin as living members of the crucified and risen Lord is expressed more fully in Rom. vi. 1—11; cf. Gal. v. 24; Col. ii. 12, iii. 2.

paλw is the scar or wheal caused by a blow. The phrase is quoted from Is. liii. 5. The slaves to whom St Peter was writing might find help to be brave and patient, when their bodies were perhaps bruised and bleeding from some cruel blow, by the thought that they were sharing in suffering like that by which their Saviour had won life and healing for them.

25. ἦτε γὰρ ὡς πρόβατα πλανώμενοι (Τ.Ε. πλανώμενα). St Peter means, You Gentiles may well apply to yourselves the language of Is. liii. about those healed by the suffering Servant of the Lord, for you were indeed wandering like lost sheep, as the speakers in that chapter describe themselves.

ποιμένα καὶ ἐπίσκοπον. The Shepherd and overseer or guardian who was all along watching over your lives. You were all along His sheep though previously "not of this fold," cf. Jn x. 16, your conversion may therefore be described as returning to Him.

20;

For Tour applied to Christ, cf. Jn x. 11; 1 Pet. v. 4; Heb. xiii. cf. Rev. vii. 17 "The Lamb shall be their shepherd."

EπloкOTOS. The verb is used of God "seeking out" His sheep in Ezek. xxxiv. 11. In Acts xx. 28 St Paul tells the elders at Miletus that the Holy Spirit has appointed them as TiσкоTо to shepherd (Toμalve) the Church of God. In the LXX. ἐπίσκοπος is used of overseers, and so it came to be adopted in the N.T. as a title of those who had the oversight of the Church.

CHAPTER III

iii. 1-12. SOCIAL RELATIONS CONTINUED.

The same principle of submission to authority as part of God's 1 will applies also to WIVES (in spite of the fact that in Christ there is neither male nor female). Wives should submit to their husbands; deeds speak louder than words. To be spectators of the effects of 2 the fear of God as seen in the pure lives of their wives may silently win husbands, who are persistently deaf to the spoken message of the Gospel. The wife's truest adornment should be not outward 3 but within, the inner character of a heart clad in the imperishable 4 ornament of a spirit which is placid in itself and gentle towards others. That is a jewel of great price in God's estimation.

Such was the self-adornment practised by the wives of whom we 5 read in the ancient story of the chosen people. Their hopes were set on God and consequently they submitted to their husbands. Take 6 for example the case of Sarah, whose daughters you Gentile women became when you were admitted to the new "Israel of God." She obeyed Abraham and called him Master." Such wives did good work, and were never scared or "flustered" into deserting the path of duty. This involves a corresponding duty on the part of 7 HUSBANDS. You must appreciate the meaning and dignity of human life and marriage. You share an earthly home with your wives; you also share the same spiritual inheritance, God's free gift of life in the highest sense of the word. Your wife, like yourself, is "a chosen vessel" of God, but she is cast in a more fragile mould and therefore needs all the gentler handling and the more honour. Any lower, more selfish, more sensual view of marriage will be a hindrance to your prayers.

To sum up mutual duties in general. All of you must strive to 8 be of one mind. Feel for one another, love one another as brothers in Christ, be tender-hearted, be humble-minded. Do not requite evil 9 with evil or abuse with abuse. Rather bless your revilers, for the inheritance of blessing is the end and object of your calling as Christians. As the Psalmist says, A man who has made up his mind 10 to love life and see good days must check his tongue from what is evil and his lips from uttering anything deceitful. He must turn 11 aside from evil and do good. He must seek peace and follow it up. So, and so only, can he attain true life, true happiness, for the eyes 12 of the Lord are over the righteous and His ears are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

I PETER

E